I’m not sure I can add much to what Frank, Rick Green, Art Spiegelman, and Minivan Diaries have to say about Wednesday night’s Guilford Board of Education travesty except possibly my personal condolences to Nate Fisher, and the students at Guilford High who are now deprived of a teacher who really wanted to inspire them to read.

Wednesday night the spineless Guilford Board of Education accepted Nathan Fisher’s resignation. His lawyer, Willie Dow, told Rick Green that “there was little alternative in a community inflamed over allegations about a teacher, a young female student and a comic book erroneously labeled as pornography.”

Rick Green serves an ace:

Honestly, I really don’t know whether the superintendent, the police or the poor girl’s amped-up parents caused this, but it didn’t have to happen. A valued, popular teacher was sacrificed because a few people freaked.

And guess what. Investigations by police and the DCF found nothing. In all of this, no responsible educator in town tried to understand what happened.

Frank volleys at the net:

Like trained seals, teachers, parents, and the public have been conditioned to accept the human sacrifices offered by teacher’s unions, administrators, and timid politicians who insist “there are no winners here”, “it’s too late to make it right”, “too bad”, “what a shame”, and the cacophony of weasel word excuses used to rationalize the barbarism of petty tyrannies. It’s all a nod and wink game.

MiniVan steps up with a smash:

Is there such blind enforcement of Reporting Laws that no matter what claim is presented by a parent or a student, school officials are required to report immediately, with no questions asked? The potential destruction of somebody’s life is at stake here. Laws are only as effective their enforcement. And perhaps therein lies some of the problem. In our vigorous quest to mete out sexual predators, we are harming a few innocent people along the way.

Please read the whole post there — she’s really got it nailed. (The Victimization of Nate Fisher)

And in response to Rick Green, Pulitzer Prize winning author Art Spiegelman comments:

Clearly, the comic book format brought out atavistic tendencies in the authorities concerned who have damaged Guilford’s reputation and all the parties concerned…..If Nathan Fisher needs a letter of recommendation for his next teaching gig, I volunteer my services.

I wish we were celebrating the Board of Education’s wisdom in backing their teachers’ decisions when they’re proven innocent.  Consider this for a moment:  Nathan Fisher was NOT GUILTY of any wrongdoing.  Yet, he lost his job.

The parents of this student were guilty of mounting a smear campaign and enlisting their police buddies and relatives to make sure everyone was whipped into a seething froth, even going so far as to campaign openly on the Internet and in newspapers not just for Fisher’s resignation, but to “see that he never set foot in a classroom again.”

Yet, they have no consequences.  No parent in Guilford should ever, ever, ever again criticize the job the Board of Education is doing in their city, because it’s clear that the parents run the asylum rather than the educators. 

The takeaway?  Insinuate loudly, use anonymous postings on the Internet to make your point, whine about the persecution of your child as a result of your own actions, and above all….spread lies and feed hysteria, and you will accomplish much.  Much, at least, as it relates to the illiteracy rate in that particular neck of the woods.

Congratulations, Guilford.  You just made a victim of the only innocent person in the bunch while rewarding his victimizers.

Rick Green with the last word:

No, Guilford handled it shamefully. A promising teacher was thrown to the wolves.

Not just thrown, Rick.  FED.  After he was cut to guarantee the scent of blood in the wind.

My other Nate Fisher posts
Wall Street Journal:  Avoiding Kids: How Men Cope With Being Cast as Predators

Technorati Tags: Nate Fisher, Nathan Fisher, education, Guilford, Connecticut, victimization, predators, parenting, toxic parents